Just to be clear, this is my first jaunt into the Hobbit world of fanfiction. If I get a few Hobbit references wrong I apologize to all the die hard fans. This also applies to a character being OOC.
I own nothing, not the characters, or the wonderful works of Tolkien.
Chapter One
"Oh for the love of –."
"Thea!" Clara's stern voice hushed her from across the table, forcing Thea to stare down at the blood drop forming on her index finger from the stupid sewing needle. Glowering at her injured digit, she sent her sister an exasperated glance before tossing the dress she'd been mending down.
"Why are we doing this?"
"You know why." Holding up her best dress, Clara studied it with a critical eye for a moment before dropping it back into her lap.
"He's not going to help." Chewing on her lip, Thea looked at her hands, hating the helpless feeling currently eating a hole in her stomach.
"He's a good man, a great King." Clara responded sternly, her once beautiful face drawn and pale. There had once been a time when Thea had been jealous of her sister's delicate looks and ability to charm the boys of Laketown with nothing but a smile, but the years hadn't been kind, to any of them, and now all she felt for her sister was pity.
"He's not one of us anymore." Not understanding why everyone held Bard in such high esteem, Thea bolted off the uncomfortable bench and moved to the stove in the corner of the room. "He lives in his great large stupid castle, surrounded by people who are only interested in how best to kiss his -."
"Thea!" Once again, Clara cut her off. "The children can hear you. And it's a royal house."
"What?"
"Its not quite a castle, I believe the people refer to it as the Royal house."
"Castle, palace, Royal House, it's the same stupid thing. All I am saying, is that your putting way too much faith into King Bard helping us."
"I don't understand where this attitude of yours comes from." Setting aside her garment, Clara clucked her tongue knowingly against the roof of her mouth. "There was a time when you'd blush anytime he was near."
Heat seared the tips of her ears, and Thea narrowed her eyes in irritation. "I wasn't a particularly bright child."
Ignoring her sister for a moment, Thea fixed her attention on dropping a few peppermint leaves in a mug before pouring water from the kettle over them. The strong aroma of mint hit her, and she hoped the leaves would calm her rubbed nerves.
Clara's plan reeked of desperation, and though she'd spent the last few days pleading with her to see the folly of it, Thea knew there was no talking her sister out of gambling what was left of their family pride. It wasn't as though she didn't understand, since the war they'd watched their carefully built world crumble away one piece at a time.
The first blow had been the hardest. The death of their Father had been nearly debilitating.
Feeling the familiar painful lump growing in her throat, Thea fought back her tears as she lifted the mug to her lips and blew on the steaming liquid. The scent of mint tickled at her senses, lending her a brief moment of calmness. But her mind refused to let go of its grasp on her last image of their father, moments before his death.
They'd been arguing, again, over his obsessive need to make a proper match for her. It wasn't that she'd been against the idea of marriage, not entirely. It was more on his personal belief of what constituted a "proper match" was for his youngest daughter. For nearly a year she'd turned her nose in the air at any potential prospect. But her Father was nothing but persistent, and finally he broke through every one of her excuses and flat out refusals. He'd somehow managed to find someone who she couldn't deem too plain, too dense, too masculine, too imperfect. Gregor wasn't exactly a love match. There hadn't been a flash of passion she'd heard the other girls in town talk about, that would make her weak in the knees. Honestly, there had barely been a flutter. But, he was someone she could see herself not wanting to throttle within a few days.
Or at least that's what he led her to believe. As the wedding drew closer, the more highhanded Gregor became. Letting little comments slip, about what he would and wouldn't allow his future wife do. Her father believed her only to have cold feet, just as their mother had days before they'd wed. Their argument had been interrupted by two large monsters.
Shaking herself from her thoughts she turned away from the stove, Thea forced that particular nightmare back, as her finger traced the scar on the side of face. Her eyes landed on the twins and felt the familiar gnaw of guilt.
The second blow had come in the form of dragon fire. Clara's husband of four years had been in Laketown, dropping off a delivery. She was supposed to have gone with him, but she'd been too preoccupied trying to talk her father out his insistence of her upcoming marriage, and Thomas had smirked at her in support as he ventured off to Laketown on his own.
He never came home.
She wished she wasn't such a terrible person, but the loss of Gregor to the battle had barely made an impact, not after having already lost her father and Thomas. But his death still had its implications, as the townsfolk, the survivors, looked at her in pity. Not only had she lost two important family members, but also her intended. Now with her 'disfigurement' it was wagered no one would ever have her.
Though the first two blows were heart wrenching, the third and hopefully final blow to the Brewer sisters was more of the financial kind. For generations, the Brewers had supplied Laketown and the villages dotted along the edges of the lake, with mead. Not just any mead, but mead laced with the best honey in Middle Earth. The recipe had been handed down through the family, blessing them financially. But their fields had been nearly destroyed during the war, and now that Dale was prospering under the rule of Bard, the town folk were more interested in more exotic brews the new trade brought in, than the one that had seen them through the darkest of times.
Now they barely scrapped by with the candles made from beeswax, and the herbs from the gardens that struggled to flourish.
Clara seemed to be under the misguided impression that if their fields were restored, they could once again produce their family mead while profiting off the newly established trade routes. Her vision was farfetched, but it was better than the other option. Selling their ancestral home, and the lands it sat upon.
"Father thought highly of Bard you know." Reaching over the table for Thea's discarded dress, Clara rolled her eyes at the sloppy stiches and went to work on correcting the mess her sister had created. "I have faith he will assist."
"I'm sure." Thea sighed, feeling anything but assured.
"Thea."
"What?"
"Please do not let your pride get in the way." Setting down the light blue fabric, Clara looked over to Thea with pleading eyes. "You know how you get . . ."
"Then perhaps I shouldn't go." Thea muttered.
"You're going, we are the last of the family, and if we want our tradition to carry on we need to be a united front." Clara's mouth pinched in frustration for a moment. "Someday you'll want something to leave for your children."
"Children?" A mirthful grin tugged at Thea's lips. "You honestly think someone wants to marry a freak like me?" Her words pulled her sister's eyes to her face.
"The scar is barely noticeable."
"It's all they see." Setting down her mug, knowing there wasn't enough peppermint in all of Dale that could calm her raw nerves, Thea rolled her eyes. "Do you think I can't hear them talk about me whenever I go to town? The poor little bee charmer who once had so much potential."
The frown on her sister's face deepened, and Thea threw up her hand to stop the lecture before it started. "Yes, I am grateful to be alive. I'm extremely lucky the Orcs arrow only grazed me, and that there was an elf nearby who had some mystical herbal cure for the poison. I also know every time I mention my scar it angers you, because of everything you lost. But it doesn't change the fact that the fair people of Dale treat me like I have some contagious plague."
"There are far more who see you for what you are."
With a snort, Thea moved back to the table and lowered herself down in her spot. "A pain?"
"A brave, passionate woman who cares more deeply than she cares to admit." With a rare smirk, Clara raised a brow. "A woman who's not getting out of attending court tomorrow. No matter how hard she tries."
"I just don't see why I must go. We both know I barely curtsey without landing on my face."
"At least no one will see your scar if you do." Thea's cinnamon colored eyes flared wide, as she stared across the table in shock. "It will serve me well by pulling the attention off my shaky hands and knocking knees."
It became clear her sister's determination and bravery was just an act. With all her talk of their past association with Bard, and his tight bond with their father, her sister doubted the newly crowned King as much as she did. It had been an odd couple of years, as everyone tried to adjust to the new way of things. Though the Master was gone, their world still held the same hardships and miseries as it had before. People got sick, they died, and with a bad turn of luck livelihoods could be lost.
With a disparaging glance to where the boys were now playing with wooden figures, she weighed the very few options she'd come up with over the last few days. Some were ridicules, while others had slight potential but required more time than they could afford. Their lands took a real beating during the war, and while nature was doing its best to recover the past few years, it would take many more before they were fully cured. But with a little bit of help, and a slight miracle, they could potentially start harvesting again next season.
But what she didn't have the heart to tell her sister, was no matter how fertile the fields were, the bees still had their little bee knickers in a twist. Though they were producing enough wax to supply them with candles, the honey was nowhere near to being sweet enough to produce a quality product.
At first, she believed the upheaval was manly due to the trauma of war. She'd done her best to tend to the gardens near the home, to provide them their favorite flowers and berries. But no matter, they seemed to spurn her attempts, and provided subpar product.
And no amount of begging and pleading to the Royal disappointment was going to fix their little bee problem.
Thea knew she should fess up and just purge her secret with Clara. But her sister would never understand, because she hadn't been born with the gift. Not that it was much of a gift, more like a weird talent. Her Grandmother had once told them tales of the Bee Charmers that ran in their family. Every generation produced one, perhaps two who could charm the bees to produce more, better quality harvests.
Clara never had interest in the bees, to be honest she was terrified of them. No, her sister had been more concerned with leaning how to run the household, needlework and turning herself into the perfect young woman. Unlike her sister, Thea had been more of a heathen. Running barefoot through the fields and forest, playing in the creek catching tadpoles, while ripping every dress her mother had painstakingly made for her. Her love for the outdoors had helped develop her special bond with the bees. She'd never once been stung, and through the years had learned how to sweet talk them out of the best honey the Brewsters had ever created.
Now, no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't seem to talk them into producing enough edible honey to fill a small jar for morning meal. And their failure was her failure.
Because she was unable to confess, Clara was adamant that they swallow their pride and beg for mercy from a man who had all but forgotten them. Worse, their plight would be aired out for all of Dale to see, and no matter how sick it made her, Thea just wasn't ready to admit she'd lost everything.